A meteorite is a piece of stone that hit the Earth from space. Around the orbit of the Earth and far beyond are flyings many pieces of stone in space. Ranging in size from dust grains to objects hundreds of kilometers in diameter. Tiny particles are called cosmic dust, large stones are called meteoroids and objects larger than 100 meters asteroids. Pieces of stone of various sizes penetrate our atmosphere regularly. Usually it involves the small objects that burn up completely in the atmosphere, and you can see the light trail of the shooting star or meteor.

Sometimes pieces of stone hit the Earth: a meteorite. The larger the meteorite, the rarer. At the end of the Cretaceousperiod, the impact of a giant meteorite caused a mass-extinction during which the dinosaurs became extinct. Recent research has shown that these mass-extinction could have been caused by the impact of a comet, but there is still debate about this. Meteorites are classified in stone meteorites, stony-iron meteorites and iron meteorites.

Thanks to Johan Vellekoop.

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